Yumna Al-Arashi’s Yemen Photographic Series

Words: Annie Sebel. Photos: Yumna Al-Arashi

Yumna Al-Arashi is more multi-faceted than one of those really pointy Dungeons & Dragons dice. Don’t speak nerd? She has more angles than a Picasso painting. Still no? Okay, how about this one: she’s one fascinating lucky dip where every bundle holds an interesting fact. A graduate with a degree in International Politics and the Middle East, a Yemeni-American woman who was born in Washington, DC but has strong connections to her ancestral roots, she is passionate about human rights, feminism, nature and beauty, and is a writer, story-teller and self-taught photographer.

Growing up in Washington, DC, Al-Arashi hated middle school – thanks to the two Bs: boredom and bullying – but found respite blogging and playing around with a basic digital camera. From school she went on to study Political Science, out of a desire to understand the world. While she enjoyed her studies, after graduating she couldn’t resist the siren song of working in a creative industry. Al-Arashi landed a job in a creative agency in the world of high fashion. While it was fun, a little voice kept saying, ‘Work for yourself, pick your own projects’. That internal voice was hard to ignore and she quit to freelance, as a journalist/photographer and work on personal projects, like her ‘Northern Yemen’ series.

For it, Al-Arashi travelled around the north of Yemen taking striking images of women against barren landscapes. She was eager to show a different viewpoint to the so-often negative one peddled in the media about the Middle East and women in hijab. “Yemeni women are strong: leaders of their home, their families, and their land. There was a fight in me to defend them after being so drained by hearing the repeated question of my experiences as a woman in the Middle East,” says Al-Arashi. “I wanted to show another side of wearing the hijab, one that portrays absolutely positive qualities: power, grace, beauty. Through this, I learned how to embrace the need to wear the hijab in such countries, and the advantages it brought me in my work.”

When did you get your first camera and what did you used to take photos of?
I got my first camera when I was around 13 I believe. I first began taking photos of my friends and documenting my days, then taking self-portraits.

Were you a good student at school? What was your school experience like?
No. I hated school. I experienced a lot of bullying, and for the most part wanted to be an outsider. I had a handful of close friends that I liked but I found more refuge online with like-minded people and learning about the world in a whole new way most of my friends weren’t interested in.

How has studying Politics influenced your photography?
It gave me the ability to learn about worlds I wanted to photograph. It also taught me how to do my research, which is so important to doing any type of journalism or in-depth storytelling.

What do you try to capture in your work?
Truth and beauty.Who are the women you travelled with in Yemen?
One is a colleague, the other is my cousin.

Was there any experience or day that stood out?
It was really hard to see my country falling apart, on the edge of war. Checkpoints and being discreet became just as important as taking the photos.

What struck you most about the country?
The dynamic between the normal citizens of the land and the authority figures. Such high tension with authority, and such warmth and hospitality with the normal Yemeni working class.

What did you want the series to speak about?
People often disregard Muslim women as being incapable of power or identity simply because they wear hijab. I believe women’s emancipation does not require women to adhere to any way of dress – whether it is hijab or bikinis. Defining emancipation based on physical appearance is not adhering to the truest form of the word. Women’s emancipation enables a woman to have equal rights in every realm no matter how they dress. In some ways, I find hijabi women to be more free than others – free of judgement based off appearance in their community, and so much more. There is a respect for a woman in a hijab that is not seen in the western world. I do not believe I am any more free than a hijabi woman because in American culture I am expected to act, look, and carry myself a certain way, and even when doing so, I am not treated with full respect. Emancipation will come when we can fully respect a woman no matter how she looks or where she comes from.

Your work is diverse from landscapes to the female form and commercial campaigns. What draws you to each project?
Beauty, always. I want to remind people of the beauty in life, even in dark times.

How often do you travel to the Middle East?
What do you most look forward to? Very regularly. I love the culture, the food, the warmth of the people.

What photo that you’ve taken are you most proud of?
Hmmm, I can’t put my finger on just one. If I was ever fully proud of just one photo I think I’d probably stop shooting all together.

What excites you?
Good food, good people.

What makes you mad?
War, borders, bigots.

What gets the creative fires burning?
Love, usually.

What was the last thing that had a profound impact on you?
The depression I’ve suffered from seeing the state of the world, the state of humanity.

What are you working on the rest of the year?
I’m busy with a few very long-term projects – which I’ll plug to just follow me on social media to see the fruits of this labour.